Abstract
In terms of where they concentrated their intellectual efforts, Marx and Engels must be regarded primarily as theorists of capitalism, but in contrast to the classical political economists they did not regard it as the natural order. Rather was it one stage of an evolving historical process. The logic of capitalism had to be understood dynamically rather than statically, both in terms of its historical emergence out of European feudalism and its destined submergence and replacement by communism. Capital volume 1 appeared in German in 1867. Although not widely read, it became, largely through the propaganda efforts of Engels,1 quite widely known. Here, it was assumed, Marx had demonstrated scientifically the transitory nature of the capitalist mode of production. As to what the next stage of history would actually be like, Marx and Engels were justifiably circumspect. Within the nineteenth-century socialist tradition such caution was atypical.
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Notes and References
See R. Morgan, The German Social Democrats and the First International 1864–1872 (Cambridge, 1965) pp. 132–3.
Quoted in D. Ross Gandy, Marx and History (Austin and London, 1979) p. 77.
Robert Owen, Report to the County of Lanark (Harmondsworth, 1970) pp. 239, 235, 246, 243, 228, 257, 259.
W. Weitling, Die Menschheit, wie sie ist und wie sie sein sollte (Reinbek bei Hamburg, 1971) pp. 177, 174.
M. Vester (ed.), Die Frühsozialisten 1789–1848 (Reinbek bei Hamburg, 1971) vol. 2, p. 91.
A. Bebel, Society of the Future (Moscow, 1976) pp. 186, 29, 32, 53.
W. Morris, Selected Writings and Designs, ed. A. Briggs (Harmondsworth, 1977) pp. 298, 209.
F. Kilvert, Kilvert’s Diary 1870–1879 (Harmondsworth, 1977) p. 121.
H. Collins and C. Abramsky, Karl Marx and the British Labour Movement. Years of the First International (London, 1965) p. 204.
This is according to F. Jellinek, The Paris Commune of 1871 (London, 1937) p. 172.
The figure of thirteen is given in O. Anweiler, The Soviets. The Russian Workers, Peasants, and Soldiers Councils, 1905–1921 (New York, 1974) p. 12.
E. Schulkind (ed.), The Paris Commune of 1871. The View from the Left (New York, 1974) p. 34.
W. Liebknecht, Briefwechsel mit Karl Marx und Friedrich Engels, ed. G. Eckert (The Hague, 1963) p. 131.
Ibid., p. 529. However, see R. N. Berki, Insight and Vision. The Problem of Communism in Marx’s Thought (London, 1983) p. 147.
See M. Margolis, Viable Democracy (Harmondsworth, 1979) pp. 60, 171.
Also L. Sekelj, ‘Marx on the State and Communism’, Praxis International, 3 (1984) p. 364.
N. Machiavelli, The Prince (New York, 1961) pp. 49–50 and see ch. 8.
According to Jellinek, The Paris Commune of 1871, p. 30; but see D. Lovell, From Marx to Lenin. An Evaluation of Marx’s Responsibility for Soviet Authoritarianism (Cambridge, 1984) p. 39.
See Engels in MESW, vol. 1, p. 485; N. Harding, Lenin’s Political Thought, vol. 2 (London and Basingstoke, 1981) pp. 134–40;
K. Kautsky, The Dictatorship of the Proletariat (Ann Arbor, 1964) p. 44; Jellinek, The Paris Commune of 1871, p. 411 and see p. 418; Plamenatz, German Marxism and Russian Communism, p. 156;
P.J. Kain, ‘Estrangement and the Dictatorship of the Proletariat’, Political Theory, 7 (1979) p. 513;
F. L. Bender, ‘The Ambiguities of Marx’s Concepts of “Proletarian Dictatorship” and “Transition to Communism”’, History of Political Thought, II (1981) p. 544.
See Harding, Lenin’s Political Thought, vol. 2, pp. 87–92; T. Wohlforth, ‘Transition to the Transition’, New Left Review, 130 (1981) pp. 67–72; Sekelj, ‘Marx on the State and Communism’.
R. Bahro, The Alternative in Eastern Europe (London, 1978) p. 31.
Marx and Engels, Über Deutschland und die deutsche Arbeiterbewegung, vol. 3 (Berlin, 1980) p. 780.
M. Rubel, ‘Did the Proletariat Need Marx and Did Marx Help the Proletariat?’ in N. Lobkowicz (ed.), Marx and the Western World (Notre Dame and London, 1967) p. 46.
B. Fine, ‘Marx on Economic Relations under Socialism’ in B. Matthews (ed.), Marx. 100 Years On (London, 1983) p. 224.
J. J. Rousseau, The Social Contract. Discourses, trans. with intro. by G. D. H. Cole (London, 1961) p. 85.
R. N. Hunt, The Political Ideas of Marx and Engels, vol. 2 (London and Basingstoke, 1984) ch. 11.
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© 1989 Michael Levin
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Levin, M. (1989). Beyond Bourgeois Society. In: Marx, Engels and Liberal Democracy. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-19759-0_6
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